


are you sure this is the only reality?

by linumlea



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Comedy, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, One-sided Hinata Shouyou/Inuoka Sou, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 12:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21161681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linumlea/pseuds/linumlea
Summary: During the training camp in Hinata's second year of high school he gives Inuoka an advice that he himself is too afraid to follow. The consequences of it Hinata won't be able to predict that easily.





	are you sure this is the only reality?

**Author's Note:**

> so i wrote this silly thing because i got sick of a long fic ive been writing for the past two months and which refuses to come together lmao   
and i needed to write something else, something far less serious to be able to deal with the frustration
> 
> also this has not been beta'd because the friend i asked to read it over for me didn't feel like reading it at first and then forgot to read it and now im too insecure to ask them again lol  
so when you spot a mistake _please_ let me know in a comment! cheers!

Hinata doesn’t know who initiates it. Someone must have. He will blame Lev for now.

The room Nekoma occupies during Hinata’s second ever training camp is currently filled to the brim with the other second years, where they all piled in after the training for the day has wrapped up. Someone brought snacks, someone brought drinks, and the mostly accidental get-together thing morphed into half a party. The whole time Hinata has been sitting there giddily because spending time with other people who were into volleyball was the second best thing after actually playing.

At first it was indeed all about volleyball and discussing the matches of the day, except then the topics moved toward a more casual angle. Hinata’s first pang of foreboding comes when he sees Nekoma’s Yuuki throw his hands in the air as he blushes so fiercely Hinata starts fearing for his blood pressure.

“I do not!” Yuuki says. “I don’t have anyone like that.”

“Eh?” Lev pushes himself up on his elbows from where he was lying down. “But what about that girl from your class, the one you’re sitting next to?”

“I told you it was nothing!”

“Boring,” Lev says before rolling over. “Tsukishima, you?”

Tsukishima snorts. “As if I would tell you.”

“You came here to hang out with us! You’re eating our snacks! At the very least you could spare a little of your secrets. A secret, sir? Spare a little secret just once?”

“In your dreams,” Tsukishima says and opens another bag of sour jellies.

“Tadashi-” Lev starts.

“Nope.”

“You’re all so fucking boring.” Lev sighs so loud it echoes in the room. Hinata starts inching backwards, very slowly, to get out of Lev’s immediate view, but like a true cat Lev zeroes in on the barest of movement. “Shouyou!”

“Yeah, ask him,” Tsukishima says. Hinata is going to murder him. Hinata is going to have to murder a man. “He became Mister Popularity this year.”

“What!”

“No joke,” Yamaguchi joins in. “People were actually interrupting practice to talk to him. Our captain had to ban visitors.”

Lev turns his head slowly and the rest of the second years start to stare at Hinata as well. As his stomach churns, Hinata can’t help but feel a little bit smug too - he had never before been this popular after all - but it all flies out the window when he sees their faces. He wishes he could escape through the window too, just to not have to reply to anything that Lev or anyone else says.

“Surely then,” Lev says with a smile slowly blooming on his face. “Surely then Shouyou can spare us a secret on who  _ he _ likes.”

Hinata swallows, his throat suddenly dry and grating like sand. “No- no one,” he squeaks. He fixes his gaze on an empty square of the floor in front of him, careful to not look at anyone, least of all- least of all Kageyama.

Somewhere, in the back of his masochistic mind, he thinks about turning and taking a good look. To see whether anything shows on Kageyama’s face, whether there is a briefest squint, a littlest bit of a frown, whether Kageyama cares at all about who Hinata has a crush on.

He doesn’t turn. He isn’t brave like that.

“Oh, he is blushing!”

“You’d be blushing too, asked out of the blue,” Sou says. When he meets Hinata’s gaze, Sou winces in sympathy and for that Hinata almost forgives him the dirty trick Sou played during the match they had earlier that day. Almost. It was an awesome trick that Hinata will make sure to utilize himself one day, but it was still dirty so it cannot be forgiven that easily.

“I would not!” Lev says. “I’m talking about who I’m into all the time!”

“Because you have no concept of a verbal filter.”

“Fine, we can go easy on Shouyou then.” He turns to Hinata. “What’s your type? Since you refuse to say who exactly it is.”

Hinata squirms. It’s not that he has something against lying, nor is he bad at it. He has a younger sibling after all, he can lie his way out of anything. But the thing is, he needs time to prepare a good lie. A believable lie. A lie that just skirts at the edges of the truth. And he has not been prepared to lie about any of this at all. Maybe if he just skews the truth a little… Just to throw them off the scent. “Has to like volleyball,” he says.

That gets him a few laughs. But it is not enough for Lev. “What about looks? I bet it’s someone petite! Like Yachi-san! You’re so fucking lucky to have Yachi-san, I swear-”

“It’s not Yacchan!” Hinata protests. “Yacchan is amazing, but she is not- not- It’s not like that.”

Lev squints. “Well-”

Hinata sighs. He can’t lie, but it’s not like he has to tell the whole truth. “Tall. Serious and hard-working.”

“You sure you’re not just describing a typical volleyball player-?”

“Lay off me,” Hinata says. “It doesn’t matter what they look like. I’ll just know when I meet the one.” He already does know, but  _ they _ don’t have to know that.

“Why is everyone in Karasuno so secretive?” Lev complains.

“We’re not secretive, it’s you who overshares,” Yamaguchi says.

“Nice, Yamaguchi,” Tsukishima says and Yamaguchi grins at him.

Lev groans. He looks around the room. “Kageyama! You! You’ve gotta have someone!”

Hinata’s throat tightens. Hesitantly, he looks from the corner of his eye. Kageyama, who has been sitting in the corner the whole time filing his nails, barely glances at them staring. “No girl,” he says and goes back to critically examining his hand.

“What about your type?”

“Needs to be into volleyball,” Kageyama says. Lev starts to open his mouth again to no doubt to complain once more, his permanent deathwish still present, but Kageyama suddenly frowns. “Cheerful, but serious when necessary. Outgoing.”

“That doesn’t sound like Yachi-san either,” Lev says.

“Why are you so fixated on Yachi-san?” Sou asks.

“I told you earlier that I had a crush on her!”

Sou shrugged. “I don’t listen to everything you say.”

“Aren’t you my friend?!”

Sou delicately doesn’t reply and Lev nearly starts a riot. Five thrown pillows and one spilled drink later he is pacified when they roll him into a futon and Sou and Yuuki sit on him to immobilize him for good measure.

The brief respite has given Hinata time to think. ‘Cheerful,’ Kageyama had said. ‘Outgoing.’

He bites his lip. There are plenty of pretty girls just like that. And at least a few percent of them are into volleyball now in their school since Karasuno got into nationals last year. 

Hinata’s heart hurts so much he can’t help but grasp at his chest, his fingers tangling into his shirt.  _ It’s so hopeless _ , he thinks, his throat burning just enough that he tries to wash it down with a drink but it doesn’t help in the slightest.

“Sou,” Lev says, slightly muffled. “You may not consider me your friend, but I consider you mine, so I care about your well-being and so I need to know who  _ you _ like.”

“That’s not how one-sided friendship works,” Sou says. He leans over Lev. “But fine. The person I like is more on the small side.”

“No,” Lev says, struggling. “If it’s Yachi-san, I’ll fight you-!”

“Relax, it’s not Yachi-san.”

“Then who?!”

“I’m not saying.” Sou tips his head. “Small,” he repeats, staring at the ceiling. “Strong-willed. Awesome.”

Everyone frowns. 

“But, like,” Lev says. “All the girls I know are awesome. You’ve gotta be more specific.”

“It’s someone you know.”

“What?!”

“So, if you have someone specific you like, why haven’t you told her?” Yuuki asks.

Sou shrinks into himself, rubbing at the back of his neck, and shrugs minutely. “I don’t think I have a chance. And, you know, there is a lot at stake.”

“Aw,” Lev says. “But that’s sooooo boring.”

Hinata looks down, at the soda in his lap he has been gripping so tightly the skin on his fingers has paled, and rolls the bottle between his tense palms to relax them. He knows where Sou is coming from with his sentiment. 

If there was the slightest chance- If Hinata had the slightest chance, would he do it? He doesn’t know, honestly. It’s so far out of his comfort zone he cannot even begin to imagine a world in which his hopeless, little, giant crush could be reciprocated. In which he isn’t alone with the thoughts of it. In which thinking about Kageyama that way doesn’t hurt.

Sou startles when Hinata knocks their shoulders together and looks him in the eye. “You should tell her,” Hinata says.

Sou’s eyes widen. “But- I can’t. It’s hopeless. It’s not- It’s not gonna end well if I do. No way.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because-”

“You’re not gonna know until you tell her. What if ten years from now you’re gonna think back to this moment and regret that you didn’t say anything? Isn’t it better to say something and get rejected than regret it later? And honestly, I don’t believe you when you say there is too much at stake - you’re just confessing, not starting a world war.”

“There is this thing called ‘the butterfly effect’-” Tsukishima starts saying, but Yamaguchi shushes him.

“You’re not starting a world war,” Hinata repeats firmly. “It can’t be that bad.”

Sou winces. “I guess?”

“Yeah!” Lev yells. “Take a plunge! Let me go, I have to go tell Yachi-san I like her right now!”

They make sure he stays in the futon the rest of the evening, until he forgets.

Briefly, Hinata toys with the thought of what would happen- what would happen, if Hinata followed his own advice. If he was less of a hypocrite. But all the scenarios that play in his head are disastrous and he resolves to forget about the idea at all. It’s a bitter thought when he wishes he could order his heart around more, so that it would stop doing it’s own thing and listened to reason for once, instead of falling for the most impossible person in Hinata’s whole universe.

The thoughts of it follow him even after they all go to the rooms their teams occupy. The droplets of water that have condensed on the ceiling in the baths he sees that evening, as he lays in the bath and stares up, remind him of stars grouped in unnamed constellations that are soon to disappear. They are unreachable, but nevertheless, as lost in thoughts as he is, Hinata reaches out, up, towards them.

He jumps when someone’s hand closes on his own; he slips and his head submerges under the water, but whoever grasped him doesn’t let go and lifts him up until he is above the surface again. Hinata coughs out the water he swallowed so hard his eyes tear up. He wobbles out of the bath and drops down on the floor, kneeling, trembling and still coughing.

“What the hell were you doing?” Kageyama’s voice asks.

“Wh-What? What were you doing!?”

Kageyama steps out of the bath too and appears in Hinata’s view, thankfully still clad in a towel, but there are drops of water on his stomach that glisten in the light. Hinata studiously looks away. “You were reaching out, I thought you needed help.”

“I was just thinking,” Hinata says. His throat burns. “You scared me, grabbing me all of the sudden!”

Kageyama’s palms curl into fists. “I thought you needed help,” he says. He steps around Hinata, back into the bath. When Hinata decides it’s safe to look again, Kageyama is already sitting in the bath, his towel folded neatly on his head. Kageyama is facing away and Hinata almost doesn’t catch it when Kageyama actually says, “Sorry.”

Hinata shivers. When he looks down, he realizes he has lost his towel and his dignity, and he wonders if the bath could have gone any worse. Then Kageyama throws Hinata’s soaked towel at him, smacking in the head, so yes, the bath could have gone even worse, it just hasn’t been done happening when the thought appeared in Hinata’s mind.

The next day it’s back to the training from early morning. They lose a match to Nekoma, Kenma smiling mysteriously at Hinata through the net after doing an awesome combination attack with Lev. He’s gotta ask him about that later.

Hinata rises from the last of the dives they had to do as punishment, and turns to seek out his water when someone claps him on the shoulder.

“Hey,” Sou says. He can’t seem to stand still and fidgets, looking at and away from Hinata, but when Hinata tries to follow his gaze, he sees nothing.

“Did you win the mini against Fukurodani again?” Hinata asks.

“We did. Kenma and Akaashi are hell-bent on defeating each other, and Fukurodani is giving us a hard time-” he stops and shakes his head. “I wasn’t gonna talk about volleyball! Listen, after dinner, can we go somewhere? Just a walk.”

Hinata blinks. “Yeah, I guess? Who else is coming?”

“Ah.” Sou fidgets again. The tips of his ears are red. “Just the two of us.”

“Huh. Why?”

“I just wanna talk to you about something.”

Hinata shrugs. “Sure.”

“Great.” Sou grins. Someone on his team calls his name and he briefly turns away, waving that he is going to be right there, before flashing another smile at Hinata and finally skipping away.

Hinata rubs at his forehead. When he whirls around it is to see Kageyama staring at him with his eyes widened and an unhappy slant to his mouth.

Hinata’s heart skips a beat. He squashes the giddiness the best he can and frowns at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Kageyama says. He looks away and takes a swig of his water.

As Hinata drinks his own, he considers asking Kageyama what’s up with him. But. He sighs. He doesn’t think he should be so sensitive to Kageyama’s moods and pick up every little change in them. And that Kageyama’s mood has changed from yesterday, Hinata is sure of. Yesterday he was all concentration, bent on getting the most from the practice matches, and today - today he seems distracted, as if he there is something else on his mind beyond volleyball, which, as Hinata realizes, sounds a little ridiculous as he is almost sure there is nothing in Kageyama’s mind but volleyball, but it is the only explanation as to why Kageyama’s playing has a tinge of normalcy to it, without the usual air of his scary concentration.

Hinata sighs again. He is way too attuned to Kageyama. It’s bordering on ridiculous.

Before the next match starts, he catches Kageyama staring again, and Hinata really doesn’t know what to think about it anymore. He doesn’t think he was doing badly today, so what Kageyama’s reason for staring could be?

They clean up after dinner - the managers have outdone themselves yet again, Hinata really doesn’t know how that is even possible - and Hinata starts to get up to look for Sou to go on that mysterious walk when he feels someone’s hand fall on his shoulder.

“Hi,” Sou says, voice small. He has a pinched look on his face, though he tries his best to smile at Hinata.

“You okay?” Hinata asks as he rises from the table and gives his teammates a little wave. They barely notice that he is leaving, too preoccupied with discussing today’s matches. He takes a better look at Sou, and Sou shrinks away from it. It can’t be just Hinata’s imagination that Sou looks ashen and nervous. “You look kinda sick.”

“Just nerves.” Sou tugs Hinata away, towards the exit. “C’mon, let’s walk.”

Hinata frowns as they weave between the tables. “Why nerves? Why are you nervous? Did something happen-?”

“No! No, nothing happened. I just need to tell you something. I swear, nothing is wrong.”

“You’re not making it easier to think differently, y’know.”

Sou laughs, the sound strained. “Sorry.”

They walk out through the exit; at the last moment Hinata glimpses the Karasuno’s team table and a very confused Kageyama standing next to it, having come back from the bathroom, looking around. Their eyes meet for the briefest of a millisecond, and then the dining room disappears from Hinata’s view as Sou and he make their way towards the building’s exit.

Kageyama pats Yamaguchi’s shoulder. “Hey, where is Hinata?”

Yamaguchi shrugs. “He went off with Inuoka just a second ago.”

Kageyama looks up, expecting to see Hinata maybe sitting at Nekoma’s table, but instead he sees a flash of bright orange moving towards the doors. 

Inuoka and Hinata are leaving the dining room.

There is a moment when Hinata’s and his eyes meet and then Hinata disappears, and Kageyama’s stomach drops. 

_ Small. Strong-willed. Awesome. _

Kageyama clenches his jaw. His gut feeling has been right. His legs move on their own and he starts after Hinata, to follow him wherever it is that Hinata is going to go.

They leave the grounds of the school entirely and walk in silence for a couple of minutes, until they reach what seems to be the bank of a small ribbon of a river. There is a group of trees there and a couple of benches, and Sou makes his way to one of them - they all seem empty, although when they approach the trees they spot a lone elderly woman on one hidden away from the immediate view who is feeding birds fluttering around her.

When they sit down, Hinata starts to have the worst of a feeling that something absolutely no good is about to happen, and no one will like the outcome of it.

He is proven right when a few seconds later Sou inhales deeply, turns to face Hinata, and his expression is serious, tinged with just enough hope to make Hinata’s heart freeze and drop into the pit of his stomach where it settles, unbeating.

Kageyama has little problem following Hinata and Inuoka to the river - they walk slowly, but their silence makes it difficult for him to stay unnoticed so he makes sure to stay many paces behind. He follows them until they reach a bench and sit down, at which point he hesitates.

He makes a wide arch and approaches the bench from the back, hiding behind a thick trunk of an old, old tree just a distance away.

He doesn’t hear either Inuoka or Hinata speak for a moment, and he starts worrying he is standing too far away, but then he hears Inuoka take a deep breath.

“I like you,” Inuoka says.

Kageyama’s throat tightens. Blood is rushing in his ears and he stumbles back, away, loath to hear Hinata say ‘I like you too’ and ‘yes’ and-

He runs. The rest of the way back he runs, and when he is back at the camp he goes to one of the unoccupied gyms and does the only thing he knows how to do - training. Until he forgets or at least until he drops, exhausted.

Hinata, unable to form any sort of a coherent reply, stays silent just long enough for Sou’s face to fall. Sou turns away and chews at his lip.

“I’m sorry,” Hinata says when words finally come back to him. “You’re my friend, but I don’t like you that way.”

Sou nods. “I know. It was doomed from the start. Just wanted to tell you after what you said yesterday.”

“Right, yesterday.” Hinata rubs his forearm. “You weren’t speaking about a girl.”

“No.”

“Damn.”

Sou shrugs. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I just wanted to get this off my chest. Come clean, you know. Move on.”

“You’re brave, Sou,” Hinata says, and much more sadness creeps into his voice than he meant there to be. Sou startles at that and sends him a concerned look. Hinata shakes his head. “I have someone I like. And I have liked them for a while. But there is so much at risk, I can’t make myself confess to them, because we have something really good going on and if I confess- What if I ruin it all?”

Sou opens and closes his mouth, and frowns. “You’re one of the most daring people I know. You’re afraid?”

“I’m just cautious.” Hinata bristles. But it’s not true, is it? He frowns. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m afraid.” He shakes himself. “Sorry, I totally sidetracked this conversation.”

“No, well, you have someone you like. No wonder you rejected me. And, y’know, it’s hypocritical of you - you told me to take the risk and now you say you don’t dare do it yourself.”

“That- That is true. Right. Sorry.”

Sou taps his fingers on the bench. “You know who I like now. Who is your someone?”

Hinata hesitates, biting his lip.

“I mean, you don’t have to say if you don’t wanna-”

“It’s Kageyama.”

Sou startles. “Kageyama? You mean  _ that _ Kageyama?”

“Yeah.”

“Woah. Okay. Damn.” Sou stops, incredulous. “I understand now why you would be afraid. Confessing to a guy on your own team? Damn.”

Hinata slumps. “Yeah.”

“But.” Sou knocks their shoulders together. “There is something you didn’t take into account - what if Kageyama likes you back?”

Hinata snorts. But when Sou continues to look at him seriously, doubt creeps into Hinata’s mind. “You serious?”

“Well, yeah. You ever seen him so friendly with anyone else? So close to anyone? He trusts you.”

“That’s part of my reasoning to not tell him. Precisely because he trusts me.”

“That’s just stupid, Shouyou. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I confess to Kageyama, Kageyama is disgusted, rejects me, stops trusting me and we tear the team apart?”

“So you have thought about this in the darkest way possible, huh?”

Hinata leans, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He is still feeling heavy, the lead in his stomach that has been gathering there ever since he realized how weirdly important Kageyama became to him still very much present, but now that his secret is out at least part of the weight has disappeared. Or maybe it’s just that the weight of it has been shared. Nevertheless, he can breathe more easily, finally. “Yes.”

“And the best outcome?” Sou asks.

Hinata closes his eyes. He has been afraid of thinking about that the most, paradoxically. “He accepts and we are good and happy and we make an even better of a team.”

“So.” Sou claps Hinata on the shoulder. “I can’t believe I’m hyping the guy I just confessed to to confess to someone else, but apparently that’s what needs to be done. Take the plunge, Shouyou. Kageyama is a reasonable enough human being - whether he accepts or not will not impact your connection that much.”

“I started doubting your understanding when you said that Kageyama is reasonable.”

Sou laughs. “You know best out of anyone, I guess. But I also think that deep down you know that it’s your darkest prediction that is unreasonable.”

Hinata sighs. “Maybe you’re right. Thanks, Sou. And, um. Sorry. About this whole thing. I mean, you’re giving me relationship advice right after-”

“Right, right.” Sou stands up. “What can you do. And I knew you would say ‘no’, you know. I just couldn’t help but hope a little too.”

Hinata nods and rises too. “Let’s go back.”

“I just wish you to be happy, I guess,” Sou says.

Hinata’s throat clenches. Thankfully Sou is tactful enough to not comment even as Hinata wipes at his eyes.

The dining room is already empty when they get back, and they split their ways to go to the rooms their teams are occupying. When Hinata opens the doors to Karasuno’s, he is greeted by the sight of Ennoshita and Tanaka whispering about something just by the entrance. They startle when the doors open and stare at Hinata.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Ennoshita says. “Have you seen Kageyama?”

“No? No, not since dinner.”

Ennoshita and Tanaka share a look. “He was supposed to help the first years with serves but he didn’t show up. If you see him, send him to either of us,” Ennoshita says.

“He probably forgot,” Hinata says.

“Probably,” Tanaka says, shrugging.

Hinata hesitates, swaying on the balls of his feet. He pivots in place and starts back to the dining room.

Kageyama is nowhere to be found in the building. Finally Hinata goes outside, towards the gyms. It’s when he approaches the third one and hears the thumps of balls hitting the floor that he slaps himself - he should have checked the gyms first, instead of expecting Kageyama to hang out with other people during his free time. So obvious, so easily missed.

In the gym Kageyama picks up one of the scattered balls and goes beyond the end line. He breathes in, tosses the ball in the air, runs up, jumps, and serves it over the net - so fast that if Hinata blinked, he would have missed it entirely. Hinata shivers, the power and the speed of the serve reminding him of Oikawa. “Go killer serve!” he cries out.

The ball hits the end line on the other side of the court just perfectly.

Kageyama freezes, breathing heavily, staring at Hinata. His face, for the first time in months, is indescribable, beyond Hinata’s understanding, as if Hinata has lost all of his ability to read Kageyama’s moods. “What do you want?” Kageyama asks. He starts looking around for another ball, but there is none anywhere near. Hinata gently kicks one that has found its way near the entrance towards Kageyama, but Kageyama doesn’t pick it up.

“You bailed on the first years, dumbass. People have been looking for you. Ennoshita told me to tell you to go to him or to Tanaka if I see you.”

Kageyama’s shoulders droop. “Shit.”

“C’mon, let’s go to the room. One of them should still be there.”

“No,” Kageyama blurts out. He himself look surprised at it, but turns away nonetheless. “No,” he repeats. “I’ve gotta clean up. You go first, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Oh, I will help you-”

“No!”

Hinata stops dead in his tracks. He narrows his eyes. “What’s your problem? I can help you, together we can clean up faster, and it’s going to be done in just a moment.”

Kageyama picks a few balls, kicking another few toward the cart left near the storage room. He refuses to look in Hinata’s direction. “Fuck off. I don’t need your help.”

Hinata shakes his head. In the pit of his stomach acid stirs. It’s as if the old Kageyama, the Kageyama that didn’t understand a thing about teamwork, decided to come back from the dead. Hinata couldn’t say he ever missed him. He likes the recently developed Kageyama much more.

Kageyama’s back is turned to him, so Hinata bents to pick up the balls that have fallen near. He carries them to the cart and throws them inside. The last one slips out of his hands when Kageyama grasps him by the collar and drags him a step away.

Hinata stumbles and his breath is knocked out of him when he hits the wall. He leans against it, staring at Kageyama in total incomprehension.

“I told you to fuck off,” Kageyama says, his voice strangled, his hands curled into fists, shaking at his sides.

“I’m not going to fuck off, especially now, until you tell me what your problem is.” Hinata’s legs shake. He breathes in, and leans harder against the wall so he doesn’t slide down it if his legs decide to buckle under him. “Kageyama, what the fuck is up with you?”

“Nothing!” Kageyama turns around. “Nothing. Just leave me alone. Go back to Inuoka.”

“Inuoka? Sou?” Hinata blinks. “What?”

“You’ve spent a lot of time with him today.”

“Are you jealous or something? He is just a friend. Relax, Kageyama, it’s not like-”

“Didn’t he ask you out?”

Hinata’s head spins. “What?”

“He asked you out.” Kageyama hesitates. “Didn’t he?”

“How do you even know about that-?”

“It doesn’t matter. Aren’t you going out with him?”

“I’m not going out with Sou,” Hinata says, feeling weird just saying it, as if he found himself in an alternate reality, another leg in the pants of time, where the idea of saying things like that to Kageyama wasn’t all that impossible.

But here he is now, saying it, with Kageyama actually listening, and apparently the impossible is possible in his very own, current reality, and there is no need to travel to an alternate one to be able to feel so amazingly, completely lost.

“You’re not?”

Hinata nods. He cannot find the beginning of the thread of his thoughts and his mind remains blank, buzzing with emptiness like an old, unkempt electric appliance.

Kageyama shakes his head, the idea still stuck with him. “But I saw you- I heard you.”

“I don’t know what you heard or what you saw, the truth is Sou is a friend and nothing more.”

“So you’re not-?”

“No. Fuck, where did this even come from?” Hinata slumps, grasping his head in his hands. Nothing is making sense and he would much rather his simpler world circumstances came back already. Where did the sense in the world go? “What is going on? Why is it even an issue to you what I’m doing with anyone? What the fuck do you care?”

Kageyama bristles. “I care! It is an issue.”

“Why? What, you think I would let it interfere with the team stuff?” Hinata says bitterly. “You think I would let a relationship come before playing? Do you even know me? Do you even know how important the team is to me?”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it then?” Hinata throws up his hands in frustration. “What is it? Why shouldn’t I be able to go out with anyone?”

“Because!” Kageyama snaps. “Because it’s not-” His eyes widen mid-sentence and he takes a step back, shaking his head. “What do I care?” He throws the question into the world, not meaning it for Hinata to answer. “I shouldn’t care.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t,” Hinata says. “You should just leave me alone and worry about yourself first.”

He turns on his heel and walks out. The gym is silent behind him and Kageyama makes not a single sound.

When he is outside and there doesn’t seem to be anyone around, Hinata’s legs wobble and he has to seek out support on the nearest wall. He slides down it, crouching and hiding his face in his hands.

His heart is beating in his throat and the bile in his stomach roils. He doesn’t cry despite the tears pressing in, stinging in the corners of his eyes. He stays there until he can hear his thoughts again through the buzzing.

Kageyama doesn’t look at him the next day. Not that Hinata notices since he isn’t looking either. Definitely not looking.

“Did you and Kageyama fight again?”

Hinata closes the tap. He has gone outside to wash his face during a break. In the sudden silence the few last drops of water falling from the tap into the metal sink and splattering there sound like beats of a drum.

“Sort of.”

Yamaguchi sighs. He rests his hip against the sink and folds his arms on his chest. “Think you can patch it up? Everyone has noticed there is something really off and the team feels off too.”

“I’m not responsible for how anyone feels,” Hinata says. He rubs at his face with a towel.

Yamaguchi’s eyebrows rise. “Wow.” His arms fall from his chest. “Maybe you’re not. But you’re a part of this team, and you better work this through if you want anyone to still have you on it in a few weeks. Because I can tell you, I’m seriously reconsidering it now.”

Hinata’s inside twists. “Yamaguchi-”

“I might have gone a little overboard there.” Yamaguchi shakes his head. “But you better work your stuff with Kageyama out.”

“It’s Kageyama’s stuff, not mine. He is being weird, and I already tried - he doesn’t even want to talk about it. Just avoids me.”

“And you have no idea why?”

Hinata shakes his head slowly. He hesitates - but Yamaguchi is a friend. And maybe he will be able to see through Kageyama, since Hinata apparently can’t. “It started just two days ago. Kageyama has been weird since day two of the camp, and then yesterday we fought for real and he sort of, I dunno, ‘accused me’ of dating Sou. Just to be clear, I’m not. I told him as much, he was surprised, then he went twice as weird as before and started thinking out loud about why he should care at all what I do with anyone. I asked him the same thing, and then bailed. I thought he would work it out on his end, but no such luck so far.”

Yamaguchi stares at him. “That’s what happened? Why did he even think that Inuoka and you-?”

“Sou sort of asked me out? I told him ‘no’. We’re still friends, though.”

“Okay.” Yamaguchi looks into the distance. “Okay. Alright.”

After a moment of silence Hinata fidgets. “So do you think you know why Kageyama is being weird?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I know. It makes sense when I think about it,” Yamaguchi says, voice distant. He blinks back to reality and claps his hand on Hinata’s shoulder. “But I think you should ask Kageyama about it. About how he feels about you being in a relationship with someone else.”

Hinata frowns. “How does that-”

“Honestly, Hinata? You already know what is up. It’s right in front of your eyes, you’re just refusing to see it.”

“Hey-”

“I’m going to leave you with this, and you better ask Kageyama directly, cause honestly? I’m not touching your relationship problems with a ten-foot pole.”

“What relationship-?”

But Yamaguchi is already walking away, leaving Hinata still very lost, but at least with an arrow pointing into a possible direction.

He finds Kageyama in Karasuno’s room after all the training matches are done. Pretty much everyone but them has already changed and left to go to dinner. Kageyama and Hinata have been the last ones to leave the gym.

Kageyama is changing when Hinata walks in. Kageyama’s hair is mussed as if he has just woken up. It looks just the same in the mornings, Hinata knows.

“Kageyama.”

Kageyama doesn’t startle but doesn’t turn around to face Hinata either. “What?”

“Why do you care about whether I’m in a relationship with someone or not?”

“I don’t,” Kageyama says. But his voice is all sorts of weird - stretched thin, soft, pained. Maybe it’s just the distance between them in the room that is making him sound like that, but haven’t they spoken here before? Hasn’t Kageyama sounded normal, before?

There has been so much change in a span of just a few days that maybe it’s not that weird for a room to start to transform people’s voices. But doesn’t Hinata himself sound normal? “You do. I can see that you do, so why aren’t you telling me anything? Aren’t we partners-?”

_ Oh _ , Hinata thinks. Oh, Hinata is such a hypocrite.

Kageyama finally puts away the last of his clothes. He turns around - and Hinata’s throat seizes at the sight of it because Kageyama’s face bears so many lines of pain. “You really want to know?” Kageyama asks.

Hinata nods, unable to speak.

“I like you. I really, really like you. And it hurts.”

For a moment Hinata sees the world as it spins in his universe. He almost loses his balance, but instead he surges forward, crossing the distance between them in what feels like one indescribable leap, and then he is wrapping his arms around Kageyama’s neck, fireworks bursting in his mind, in his stomach, painting the visage beyond his eyes pink. Kageyama cannot bear the weight of both of them and they fall tumbling to the ground, tangled, and when they stop, their hands are twisted into each other’s clothes.

“I like you too! I really, really like you too!” Hinata says, unsure whether he is about to cry or laugh as the mix of emotions he feels is impossible to distill into just one to be able to name it anything but everything at once.

Kageyama’s hands are shaking, and when Hinata flips himself to sit on Kageyama’s stomach and grasps at Kageyama’s cheeks and kisses him, Kageyama’s face is pure confusion.

“Since when?” Kageyama asks, dumbfounded.

“I dunno.” Hinata pulls away to the length of his arms, placing his palms on either sides of Kageyama’s head. The ink of Kageyama’s hair has spilled on the floor, and Hinata has to be careful to not pin it down. Kageyama’s eyes are that of a sparkling midnight. “Since the beginning of this year.”

Kageyama hummed. He slowly, hesitantly touches Hinata’s face, his head, his shoulders, as if he was making sure of something. “I win,” he said. “Since the middle of last year.”

“What!” Hinata sits up straight. “I couldn’t tell at all.”

Kageyama snorts. “Why would I show it? You haven’t been interested.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“I just knew-”

They both startle when the doors to the room rattle open. “Hinata, Kageyama, dinner is in five-” Ennoshita starts saying and trails off.

Hinata looks over his shoulder. Ennoshita’s face doesn’t betray any emotion he might be feeling at the sight of them. “Can you, like, do that in a more private place?” Ennoshita asks. “Not on other people’s futons? That would be great. Dinner is in five minutes so hurry up.” He closes the doors. “I should be paid in gold if I’m gonna have to deal with this a whole year,” Hinata hears him mutter as Ennoshita walks away from the room.

Hinata looks back down. Kageyama has covered his face with his hands, but every inch of his skin that is visible is perfectly red, to the tips of his ears. It’s adorable, even though Hinata knows he looks exactly the same.

He has not even begun to think that maybe they should keep it a secret for a while and the secret is already out.

“It’s kind of out of order, but- Kageyama, will you go out with me?” Hinata asks. Kageyama, without uncovering his face, nods.

Maybe the world is right after all. Maybe his current reality is the best one possible.


End file.
